From the archive, 16 February 1971: Penny pinching mars a lovely day

Britain moved smoothly into the decimal era yesterday, showing that money is money whatever it is called. The fear of confusion as travellers and shoppers met the new bronze coins for the first time proved unfounded. Indeed, familiarity with the 1p piece developed in directions which the Decimal Currency Board had not anticipated: within an hour or so of its official introduction the coin was being used by quicker-thinking citizens to feed slot machines geared to the 6d piece.

The unexpected inflationary pressure of this chicanery was made plain by a launderette manageress in central London: "I got in touch with the agents for our soap-dispenser and spin-dryer but they told me the machines are too old to fix. They can't make them sensitive enough. I wanted to keep them at the old price as long as possible, but now I've had to arrange for them to be converted to take 5p as soon as they can get it done."

So, the few who went for a half-price bargain will double the cost for everyone. The ploy fails with telephone-boxes and more up-to-date slot-machines. Apart from this quirk, however, Lord Fiske, the chairman of the Decimal Currency Board, reported at the end of the first day's business — a change that has cost Britain £130 millions — that everything had gone better than he had dared hope.

Public houses had many more customers offering notes than usual and claimed that few of them were bothering to check their change. The board's survey indicated that 69 per cent of its sample thought that prices had been converted fairly into £p; 12 per cent thought they had not; and 20 per cent did not yet know. Lord Fiske thought that the real test of the changeover will come on Thursday and Friday, when most people do their weekend shopping.

Some complaints were made about the smallness of the new ½p coin and some old people said they found it hard to handle. Lord Fiske defended the new ½p coin on the grounds that it was not unduly small by world standards. He committed himself to the statement that the coin would not disappear in his lifetime.

The day inevitably produced its grumbles, mainly from bus conductors and taxi drivers who are having to handle both forms of currency for the time being. Many seemed to find the arithmetic involved too much of a burden in an already crowded life, and in the Irish Republic, some conductors in Dublin and Cork refused to handle the new coinage until they got more pay for doing so.

Harold Jackson

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